Advanced gas turbine hybrid power systems to improve SOFC economic viability

Coupling a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) with a gas turbineprovides a substantial increment in system efficiency comparedto the separate technologies, which can potentiallyintroduce economic benefits and favor an early market penetrationof fuel cells. Currently, the economic viability of suchsystems is limited by fuel cell short lifetime due to a progressiveperformance degradation that leads to cell failure.Mitigating these phenomena would have a significant impacton system economic feasibility. In this study, the lifetime of astandalone, atmospheric SOFC system was compared to apressurized SOFC gas turbine hybrid and an economic analysiswas performed. In both cases, the power production wasrequired to be constant over time, with significantly differentresults for the two systems in terms of fuel cell operating life,system efficiency, and economic return. In the hybrid system,an extended fuel cell lifetime is achieved while maintaininghigh system efficiency and improving economic performance.In this work, the optimal power density was determined forthe standalone fuel cell in order to have the best economicperformance. Nevertheless, the hybrid system showed bettereconomic performance, and it was less affected by the stackcost